Sorry, You Still May Not Be Able To Keep Your Plan

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) has proposed a bill that to fix Obama's
"if you like your plan, you can keep it" lie. It won't work and a
Fox News segment last night shows it.

Upton's bill would
"grandfather" in all plans that existed as of Jan. 1st, 2013 and
allow insurers to continue selling them outside of the
exchange.

President Obama announced a
similar approach this afternoon which faces similar
issues.

Neither Upton's bill nor Obama's executive action would
require insurers to bring back canceled plans and they
often won't want to do so. Many insurers canceled plans because
they were full of high-cost beneficiaries. In some circumstances,
like with United Healthcare in California, they have exited the
states' individual health insurance markets entirely. Even if
Upton's bill became law, many insurers would choose not to bring
back canceled plans.

In addition, plan restorations may be technically infeasible.
Insurers have already sent out cancellation notices and
configured their computers for the new plans. They are ready for
Obamacare. To sell their old plans, insurers would have to
receive permission from state insurance regulators. Industry
sources told
Politico yesterday that "it’s likely too late to undo
the cancellation notices that already have gone out."

Van Susteren played out the
scenario of what would happen if the legislation became
law:

How in the world do you expect it to even be operable because the
insurance companies that have cancelled these policies, you can't
make them all of a sudden un-cancel policies. Even to un-cancel
the policies to get new policies, they have to go to their states
to get the state's insurance commissioner to OK these policies.
So how in the world can this possibly change things for the many
Americans who are out there freaked tonight because they're sick
or in the middle of some medical procedure or care? I don't get
it.

Kinzinger immediately pivoted in his response without addressing
anything Van Susteren said. "The issue frankly is the bigger
issue of Obamacare in general," he said. "This thing is going to
collapse and fail on its own."

She cut him off and pushed harder for an answer saying, "This is
an urgent situation for some people."

And Kinzinger responded by attacking the enrollment numbers:
"Exactly. Look right now the White House has not even released
the demographics of the people who have signed up."

The reason that Kinzinger couldn't actually defend how the Upton
bill would help people is because it doesn't work. It's a great
soundbite and a good way to earn political points, but it isn't a
solution to Obama's lie.